plot and image demos (growing window)

[Daniel J Sebald]

Ben Abbott wrote:
> On Jun 2, 2009, at 12:31 AM, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> 
>> Rik, Ben,
>>
>> I've had an opportunity to try this out with numerous versions of  
>> gnuplot.  There is randomness to the window expansion.  That is, it  
>> isn't on ever plot that the window expands.  That fact seems to  point 
>> to gnuplot as the source, and the problem seems to exist as  far back 
>> as gnuplot version 4.2.0.  However, the expansion is at a  much slower 
>> rate, approximately once with every 200 to 300 plots.   With gnuplot 
>> version 4.2.5 the expansion rate is about once every 3  or 4 plots.  
>> There could be a timing issue made worse by new  additions to gnuplot 
>> over the years; one that shows up only when the  CPU is being 
>> completely taxed.
>>
>> I'll look into the gnuplot side of things (and if you want to send  
>> something to the gnuplot discussion list, feel free), but my advice  
>> would be to not spend too much effort tracking down exactly where  
>> Octave might cause a problem.  It might just be a random arrangement  
>> of code that works better than other versions.
>>
>> Dan
> 
> 
> I'd like to send something to the gnuplot developers. Unfortunately,  
> I'm unable to produce a gnuplot script that demonstrates the problem.  
> For some reason, I'm only able to demonstrate the problem when  
> communicating using the i/o stream (popen2) between octave and gnuplot.
> 
> Any chance you have a gnuplot script that demonstrates the problem?

Sorry, no.  I've tried, but probably not as much as you have.  What you said in the previous paragraph is important, however.  The conflict/timing issue may have to do with the presence of another i/o stream.  I say another, because I believe gnuplot_x11 (the actual program that does the rendering of the X11 plot) uses an i/o stream for mouse and gnuplot/gnuplot_x11 communications.  I recall the developers' comments about that being a difficult thing to program.  Lots of traffic, high CPU use could be increasing the likelihood of some type of clash with the mouse.  It's difficult to tell exactly.

Dan